Research projects

Overview Given recent societal and policy changes, the UK faces an increased need to know how the world of work has changed. The overarching aim of the Skills and Employment Survey 2024 (SES2024) is to collect robust survey data on the skills and employment experiences of people aged 20-65 working in the UK in 2024….

We are pleased to announce the launch of Migration Research Wales. This is a new research network convened by Dr Catrin Wyn Edwards and Rhys Dafydd Jones (both Aberystwyth University). It is committed to developing research capacity, and encouraging dialogue between academics at Welsh institutions and between academics and practitioners. Migration is a theme that…

Introduction The network was launched at the event ‘Well-Being and Social Participation: Education, Cultural Engagement, and Health’ as part of the WISERD Summer Series, 2021. It is aimed primarily at academics engaged in inter-disciplinary and/or multi-disciplinary well-being research and its promotion across policy, and in statutory and non-statutory practice-based contexts. However, we also have non-academic…

Aim The project has these two primary aims: Promote engagement with the School Governors Reflections Resource; Ensure the sustainability of the resource over the medium term (next 12 – 24 months). We also hope the project will allow us to explore further opportunities to research how school governors in Wales can be more effectively supported…

Environmental controversies are often about knowledge and expertise as much as they are about politics, rights and life chances. The reason is that the evidence produced by the different groups involved is often part of the controversy, with disputes over what is known and not known, by whom, and with what degree of accuracy being…

New Emerging Citizenship Regimes explores five citizenship ideal types (Pandemic, Algorithmic, Liquid, Metropolitan, and Stateless) stemming from critical/radical social innovation perspective by employing fieldwork action research in six specific city-regional cases. COVID-19 has hit European citizens dramatically, not only creating a general risk-driven environment encompassing a wide array of economic vulnerabilities but also exposing them…

Summary Wales is unique in having a national digital platform for online teaching and learning – Hwb (https://hwb.gov.wales/). This means that all children in maintained schools in Wales login to and use Hwb to access learning materials provided to them by schools and teachers. This project will have unique access to data collected via Hwb…

Led by Karel Williams at the University of Manchester and with a web site dedicated to the growing field of Foundational Scholarship and practice (https://foundationaleconomy.com/) this network has members from stakeholder organisations and academic institutions and meets regularly in Cardiff.  The network has built on ESRC IAA funding awarded to Kevin Morgan to extend the…

Commencing in January 2020, WISERD is part of an ESRC funded collaboration called the Productivity Outcomes of Workplace Practice, Engagement and Learning (PrOPEL) Hub. Led by Strathclyde University, PrOPEL Hub brings together five recently funded ESRC investments working in the area of productivity.  The aim of PrOPEL Hub is to help boost productivity and wellbeing…

Overview:  This ESRC funded project aims to identify, categorise and compare scales and types of civil society involvement in youth unemployment policy between the four devolved nations of the UK. In doing so it will examine the implications of these differences for both youth unemployment provision and devolved policy arrangements. The broader aim is to…

This is a project that is being undertaken by colleagues in Cardiff Business School and WISERD in collaboration with the Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC). It built on an earlier ESRC IAA Award which was completed in March 2019. The focus of our work is to improve and develop the database used by CCC to record and…

Children and young people’s rights: formal and informal constructions of citizenship utilises an international comparison of the civic expansion of children’s rights in four Western countries (including Wales), and how this can rebalance the civic deficits associated with childhood. Start date provided is that of the WISERD Civil Society Centre. Work packages will have their…

Identity and civic divides in the UK examines the relationship between different forms of identity (disability, sexuality, religion) and political participation and wellbeing. It explores whether identity groups experience differential abilities to exercise rights, and possible explanations for any differences. Start date provided is that of the WISERD Civil Society Centre. Work packages will have…

A WISERD research team comprising Professor Paul Chaney, Dr Christala Sophocleous and Professor Daniel Wincott has worked with Wales Council for Voluntary Organisations (WCVA) and The National Library of Wales to create a historically significant digital archive of the Annual Reports of WCVA and its predecessor organisations. We are delighted to make this resource publicly and freely…

Excluded Lives is a multi-disciplinary project across the four jurisdictions of the UK led by the Department of Education at the University of Oxford and in partnership with the universities of Oxford, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Queen’s Belfast, and the LSE. The overarching aim of this project is to provide a comprehensive and multi-disciplinary view of the…

Inequalities, civic loss and well-being uses innovative methods, including app-based surveys of spatial mobility and data linkages, to compare place-based and individual measures of accessibility, and explore how changing patterns of civic loss and gain relate to measures of health and well-being. Start date provided is that of the WISERD Civil Society Centre. Work packages…

The qualitative strand of this work package explores how the circulation of ideas, arguments and discourses within local civil society has contributed to the rise of populism and polarisation of politics in Britain and the United States, and what part civil society can play in addressing social and political polarisation. We are examining the relationship…

Patronage, elites and power relations explores systems of patronage within civil society and the connections between civil society, civic stratification and elite formation. It considers the origins and destinations of patrons in civil society organisations and institutions, as well as the significance of different educational institutions and occupational profiles in affording privileged access to elite…

This work-package is an international study of civil society, trust and human rights in mixed economies of welfare. It seeks to understand the issues, progress and challenges facing CSOs as they deliver – and shape – welfare and press for the advancement of human rights. It has three components: UK Research 1. A Critical Examination…